


i'm going there no more to roam

by lazulisong



Series: HAIRBALLER [16]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Cats, Gen, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, bucky come back, cats are predators, murder presents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2065461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazulisong/pseuds/lazulisong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neighbor Cat was sitting at their doorstep, thoughtfully washing his snowy paw. He lifted his head when he saw Steve, and sniffed the air before he came up to Steve and began to twine affectionately around his ankles, purring and meowing all at once, interspersed with with hopeful chirrups. Steve supposed Sam wouldn't miss a <i>little</i> of the chicken. He sat down on the stoop and Neighbor Cat rubbed his head hopefully against Steve's knee.</p><p>When he opened up the foil package, Neighbor Cat darted close, and in defiance of his usual perfect manners, snatched up the chicken and bolted for the fence, scaling it in two bounds, and disappeared into the gully like a shot.    </p><p>"What the hell?" said Steve, staring after him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm going there no more to roam

**Author's Note:**

  * For [regonym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/regonym/gifts).



> I genuinely have no idea how to warn for this, but one of the major characters is a cat based on a childhood cat (I know, I know) and that cat was gotten because we lived in a decrepit farmhouse and holy Jesus the mice were everywhere. So while there is no _domestic_ animal harm, there is quite a bit of circle-of-life style animal harm. So if that is a thing, please be safe and nope out! 
> 
> Thanks to Amanda and Verity for editing and Verity for PTSD checking. I'm trying to be careful about that so if I mess up please feel free to talk to me about it! Finally Jen in FL thought up the name for German Shepherd Dog.
> 
> SORRY FOR BITCHING ON TWITTER ALL DAY YOU GUYS

Looking back, the first clue that they had that something was up was Neighbor Cat moving purposefully across the yard with a squirrel in his mouth.

Neighbor Cat's actual name was something like Fuzzkins or Jackass or Rascal, but Sam called him the Colonel and saluted him respectfully. He was a large cat with a long black tail and black spots on his white fur, with a spot on his forehead that made him look a little like he was wearing a toupee. Steve called him Neighbor Cat and sat on the back stoop while Neighbor Cat purred and rolled over on his back to entice Steve to rub the rich ivory fur of his stomach and stroke the softness of the fur under his chin. 

Neighbor Cat was in charge of a family two houses away from Sam: there was the human family, of course, but also a younger tuxedo cat and a German Shepherd dog, who spent most of her time looking gloomily sure that a human child was going to become lost, or else pull her ears too hard again. Steve sympathized. Neighbor Cat spent a great deal of his time catching and carefully arranging small rodents, reptiles, and birds on the front stoop of the house for the human mother of his family to find when she stumbled out sleepily to get the paper in the morning. Steve got into the habit of being there right about the time she usually came out of the house so he could clear the little line of death away. 

"It's very sweet of him," she said, pushing her tangled curls into something like order. "He's just trying to provide for us." She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than Steve.

Steve scooped up a particularly sad looking corpse (it might have been a baby mouse, or a shrew, which Sam said cats liked to give to humans because they were rather difficult to catch and also tasted terrible, so no cat that had any other options cared to eat them) with the neighbor lady's dust pan and tipped it into a plastic bag. "He's a very nice cat," he said diplomatically. 

Neighbor Cat sometimes brought Sam and Steve dead things, as a mark of particular favor. When he taught the younger tuxedo cat how to hunt, he did it in Sam's backyard because of the shed that was going to be cleared out and scrubbed the next time Sam had a moment to spare, and was full of old tents and yard equipment and the lawn mower Sam meant to repair some day, and consequently had at least three mice nests at all times. There was also a woodpile, which was old and full of garter snakes. Neighbor Cat liked to drop those on Steve's feet when he was sitting on the stoop with a sketchbook idle in his hands. The younger tuxedo cat patiently learned his lessons, but much prefered catching moths on the fly. Steve had watched him catch a big brown one at dusk and drop it triumphantly at the dog's feet, who looked at it with an expression of horror and dismay. 

But squirrels were special presents because they were difficult to catch, always rushing up trees and jeering at the cats and dog below. The German Shepherd dog especially loathed them, so much that she refused to play with the squirrel toy the human father of the household had bought from the Audubon Society when he went with the children on a field trip. Sometimes she would pick it up and give it a fierce, neck breaking shake, and then in the next instant drop it and walk away haughtily. 

"I'm worried about you, man," said Sam. "You're becoming some sort of suburban hermit that only talks to animals."

Steve said, "I talked to Nat three times this week." 

"Nat doesn't count," said Sam. 

Steve would have liked to argue, but even besides the way that conversations with Nat tended to be full of silences as she cleaned her equipment and he listened to the noises of the cloths on gunmetal and her steady breathing, Nat was often like a cat that had chosen to be human for pure convenience's sake. 

That was when Neighbor Cat trotted by with the squirrel. 

It was a magnificent squirrel, nicely fatted up from eating Sam's other neighbors' walnuts and the dried corn the neighbors across the way left for them and the loud quarrelsome jays. Even from several yards away Steve could see it had a beautiful pelt and a long tail so bushy it was nearly as broad as Neighbor Cat. Neighbor Cat looked neither to the right nor to the left as he moved swiftly across the yard and scrambled over the fence on his way to the small forested gully behind Sam's house.

"Where is the Colonel taking that?" said Sam, watching him.

Steve shrugged. "Maybe there's a litter of kittens down there." Neighbor Cat was very maternal, especially for a tom, and deeply interested in all babies he met. The neighbors across the way from Sam had given up trying to keep him away from their purebred corgi's litters. He was always being found minding them while she took the air outside. "We could track him. Be good practice."

"Don't try to distract me, Rogers," said Sam. "You need to have human contact that isn't me or Nat."

"I went to the range with Barton last Tuesday," said Steve, feeling his jaw set in the way that Bucky had always called his pig-headed scowl before tussling his hair roughly and advising him not to be a chump. 

"Barton takes his hearing aids out at the range. I've seen you there," said Sam. "You just stand at the opposite ends of the range and shoot for two hours."

"We played cards afterward," said Steve, stubborn. "And Miss Potts and I went to a museum on Thursday."

Sam rubbed his face. "When was the last time you talked to a person that wasn't me or one of the Avengers, Steve? Picking up mouse corpses for Tamika doesn't count." 

Steve looked away.

"Rogers," said Sam gently. 

"I can't until everything's settled," Steve said, and knew it for an excuse when it left his mouth. "I mean -- I'm not good at it."

"Rogers, you talked to me without prompting," said Sam flatly. "In fact unless the forties were really damn different, you pretty much came up and started hitting on me --"

Steve turned red. He sort of had. But then --

"Bucky was always better at it, at meeting people and getting to know them," he said. "I never really had to, to worry about it, you know? I knew they probably wouldn't like me and if they put up with me it was for Bucky's company anyway, and then afterward they were just flirting with me because I looked like this. Then he was there again and I didn't need to."

Sam said, "Then where did you learn to flirt with strange men on the street?"

"Bucky flirted with anybody," said Steve. "He could make anybody smile just by smiling at them."

Steve had loved it, the way Bucky crowded up close to him and murmured things in his ear, dry witty observations of what they saw, like Bucky didn't want to be with anybody but Steve even though Steve was small and weak and angry about it all the time. He didn't say that part. From the way Sam was looking at him he didn't have to. 

"Aw, Cap," Sam sighed. "Look, you gotta go out and do something. Go to the library. Try a doughnut burger. Talk to someone on the bus. I don't care, but you're isolating yourself and I don't want to say that Bucky wouldn't've wanted that but --"

Bucky would have been furious at Steve. What are you doing moping by yourself, Rogers, get your nice shirt on and go to the damn soda shop, if nothing else. You're gonna waste away here by yourself, come on, let's go to the park, get a breath of fresh air. Come on, Stevie, get your tuchis moving. "What if I go to the food carts for lunch tomorrow?" bargained Steve. 

"By yourself?" said Sam.

"Yes, Mother," said Steve, exasperated. "I'll talk to three people at the tables and take a damn selfie of my damn plate and text it to you." 

"Don't sass me, young man," said Sam.

* * *

Steve had food from Guam, which turned out to be pretty good. He'd even talked to a couple of the office workers on their lunch breaks, who had politely pretended not to know who he was, and had a staring contest with a small child in a pair of overalls and a dinosaur teeshirt. It had a ribbon in it's hair, so Steve was almost sure it was a little girl. It had put two fingers in its mouth and studied him carefully. Then it had taken its fingers out of its mouth, said, "I have a new kitten and it's brown" and thereafter remained silent until its mother picked it up and scolded it in a hiss for talking to strangers. Steve waved awkwardly as they left, and the child had pulled its fingers out of its mouth to wave back. 

When he got back to Sam's house with a to-go bag of chicken and red rice for Sam, Neighbor Cat was sitting at their doorstep, thoughtfully washing his snowy paw. He lifted his head when he saw Steve, and sniffed the air before he came up to Steve and began to twine affectionately around his ankles, purring and meowing all at once, interspersed with with hopeful chirrups. Steve supposed Sam wouldn't miss a _little_ of the chicken. He sat down on the stoop and Neighbor Cat rubbed his head hopefully against Steve's knee.

When he opened up the foil package, Neighbor Cat darted close, and in defiance of his usual perfect manners, snatched up the chicken and bolted for the fence again, scaling it in two bounds, and disappeared into the gully like a shot. 

"What the hell," said Steve, staring after him. There really must be a litter of kittens in the gully, for Neighbor Cat to behave like that. If he went after him by himself, Sam would have kittens himself, and Nat would probably try to hamstring him, and Stark would call and talk to him loudly about trackers for two hours. All around, he decided, it would be better for to wait for tomorrow when Sam could go with him. If there was a mama cat to manage, he would definitely need more than one pair of hands. 

* * *

Sam had to go in to the VA for an emergency with one of his vets the next day, and Neighbor Cat hung around Steve lashing his tail anxiously before stealing half the chicken Steve had planned to hash for dinner and dashing off again. 

This was getting really odd, Steve thought.

* * *

The next day Sam tried to convince him to go to a game with him instead of "lurking around the damn house like the ghost of the Greatest Generation" but Steve was watching for Neighbor Cat. He hadn't seen him all day. "Let's go ask Tamika if she's seen Neighbor Cat," he said. 

"Steve, man, you're a great guy and all, but you are weird about that cat," said Sam. "If we do, can we go to the damn game?"

"Sure," lied Steve. 

They walked down to the neighbor's house. The kids were in the front yard, but the German Shepherd dog was in the fenced back yard, pacing back and forth and whining. "What's wrong with Astrid?" Sam said to the kids.

"She wants out, I guess," said the oldest. "It's okay, she can't jump the --"

The German Shepherd dog took three steps back, bunched her powerful hindquarters, sailed over the fence in a single graceful leap, and ran straight for the gully.

The only one not staring in shock was Steve, who had known German Shepherd dogs in the war. 

"That fence is taller than I am," said Sam dumbly. "Hey -- Steve! What the hell!"

Steve wasn't paying him any attention. If the German Shepherd dog had heard something that made her break her training enough to jump that fence in front of humans, Steve damn well wanted to know what it was. 

A dog was considerably easier to follow than a cat, at least. Cats could slip through the underbrush without much of a path, but the German Shepherd dog was crashing her way through the gully at a speed that even Steve had difficulty catching up with, and the steadiness and balance she gained from being on four paws instead of two legs made her able to take a path that Steve almost couldn't follow. As he followed her deep into the gully he heard a faint sound, that gradually resolved itself from their crashing progress and Sam yelling at them from behind to the sound of Neighbor Cat wailing and yowling in distress. The German Shepherd dog barked in reply, and Neighbor Cat shrieked back at her. She crashed through a thicket, Steve hot on her heels, and skidded to a halt so quickly that Steve almost fell over her. Neighbor Cat was standing over a black huddle of old clothes curled half under a boulder, his tail bushed out and eyes wild. The German Shepherd dog rushed over to him and sniffed him and the bundle of clothes thoroughly. 

Steve took a stumbling step forward, staring in disbelief.

Sam half fell into the thicket, and the German Shepherd dog whirled and growled at him, showing all her teeth. Her ruff was raised and her posture defensive. If she decided either of them were a threat she would not stop until they were down, possibly for good.

"Astrid!" said Steve sharply. "No!" 

The German Shepherd dog stopped showing her teeth, but she paced around the bundle of clothes and Neighbor Cat, watching them and growling beneath her breath.

"What the shit fuck damn fucking hell is going on here," said Sam, between heaving gasps for air.

"That's Bucky," said Steve.

"What?" said Sam. 

"Look," said Steve, and pointed to the dull flash of metal showing in the bundle of clothes. He felt curiously calm. Of course Neighbor Cat had found Bucky and tried to take care of him. He could see the remains of the squirrel at the other end of the tiny clearing, and the chicken from the day before, mostly untouched. Of course Bucky had tried to come to him. 

"Oh my God," said Sam.

* * *

It took them a while to convince the animals to let them near Bucky, and even then the German Shepherd dog watched them carefully and Neighbor Cat growled and lashed his tail at them. When Steve turned him over, Bucky opened hazy blue eyes, said "Steve," and fell unconscious again. 

"I'll get a machete," said Sam, looking around at the thicket. "I can't carry that much weight and even with the reactor assist I can't spread my wings enough to take off here." He hesitated. "Stark's in town," he said.

Steve considered the time it would take Sam to fight his way out of the thicket and back up the gully, how long it would take him to get back, how difficult it would be to climb back up with Bucky a dead weight in his arms or slung over his back. "I'll call him," he said, the words dragged out of him. 

* * *

When Stark came he brought Nat with him, hanging onto his back like a dignified baby monkey. "If I hadn't been wearing armor she would have strangled me," said Stark, sounding proud even through the voice synthesizer of the Iron Man. Nat ignored him completely, dropping off his back and moving swiftly toward Bucky.

Neighbor Cat made a noise that Steve had never heard a cat make before in his life, an eerie challenging song from deep in his throat that started like a wail and ended in a hiss. His back arched up and he danced sideways, glaring at Natasha. 

"It's all right," said Steve, crooning at Neighbor Cat. "She's not going to hurt him." He looked up at her and knew his eyes were just as wild as Neighbor Cat's and the German Shepherd dog's were. "Right?"

Nat took a step back and changed her body language completely, becoming smaller and more harmless all at once. "Is he breathing?" she said.

"Yes," said Steve. He wasn't going to let anybody touch Bucky. He wouldn't let them take Bucky away from him. He was aware, in a distant sort of way, that there was something wrong with him. Shell shock, he thought. You're going nuts. He hunched closer to Bucky, trying to hide him away from Stark and Sam and Nat. 

"Oh boy," said Stark. "Look, I'll be …. on the other side of the clearing. Listening to music. Something. Let me know when you guys need a lift."

"Nat, you might want to take a couple more steps back," said Sam. His voice was calm and friendly. "Hey, Steve, hey buddy, remember those breathing exercises? You want to do a couple of those for me?"

Steve wondered why Sam was so worried about breathing exercises when Bucky was small and hurt beside him and Nat hadn't moved her hand away from her holster, but he knew that Sam wouldn't hurt Bucky. He dragged his eyes from Nat and looked at Sam, who had lowered himself to the ground and was sitting in an easy, open posture. 

He couldn't help Bucky if he was scared, he remembered. He had to learn to manage the shell shock so that he could help Bucky learn. 

"Okay, you ready, buddy?" said Sam. "Four count in, seven count hold, eight count out. Ten good ones, yeah? Here we go." 

Steve breathed with Sam and after a minute his head cleared enough that he said, "Sorry, Nat," stiffly.

"At least you didn't try to kill me," said Nat, completely serious. "Can I come over there to look him over now?"

"Maybe put your gun down," said Steve. He knew that Stark could take him and Bucky out from much further away than across the tiny clearing, but he could ignore Stark if he tried. Natasha hesitated for a minute but pulled off her holster and two other guns from somewhere and laid them on the ground where Steve could see them. She moved slowly toward Bucky and Steve, and Neighbor Cat's low growl increased in pitch. Nat stopped and Steve took one hand away from Bucky to stroke Neighbor Cat from head to tail. Neighbor Cat relaxed enough that Nat took another step forward, and another step. A sharp word from Steve made the German Shepherd dog lie down reluctantly, and Nat lowered herself to her knees beside Steve and Bucky. She checked Bucky with careful, gentle hands, and said, "Stark, do you have a scan for me?"

"He's not injured," said Stark, turning his face plate toward them. "Nearly healed shoulder displacement looks like, did Steve give that to him? I don't like the looks of that metal arm, but that can be fixed. I'd have to get blood samples but his temp's elevated, more than Rogers, so I imagine that's an actual fever and not just supersoldier metabolism messing with the readings." The faceplate turned toward Steve. "You want me to bring him to Wilson's place, or New York? We got more equipment in New York, but nothing I can't have delivered. He's not going to be any danger to anybody until that fever runs itself out, and I can bring Bruce out to take a look at him." 

Steve hesitated, but only for a moment. New York would be more secure, but Sam's house felt safer, somehow. "Sam's house," he said, and then, dragged out of him, "Thank you, Stark."

"Thank me by not getting yourself killed over him -- or by him," said Stark acidly. "Hold the animals back, will you?" 

Steve gathered Neighbor Cat into his arms, where he trembled angrily and dug his claws into Steve's arms, and spoke softly to the German Shepherd dog. She put her head down, watching Stark closely as he made his heavy way to them. He picked up Bucky with surprising delicacy and lifted off slowly. 

Steve stood up slowly, Neighbor Cat still in his arms. He felt stiff and desperately tired. He turned wearily to the path they'd made crashing through the gully and began walking out, ignoring Nat and Sam behind him. 

* * *

Stark stayed long enough to make sure Bucky was settled safely in bed with Steve carefully cleaning off the worst of the dirt on his body and body, Neighbor Cat watching with proprietary interest from the foot of the bed. The German Shepherd dog had been taken home by Sam with a carefully edited version of the truth. Nat watched Steve wipe the fever sweat from Bucky's chest and said, "This isn't the happy ending, you know."

Steve lifted Bucky up to wipe the sweat from his back. How many times had Bucky done that for him? He couldn't remember. Even with his enhanced memory all he had was a dim impression, fever distorted, of careful hands and a cool cloth and a low voice singing softly, absently. A feeling of safety in Bucky's strong hands, maybe. He hoped that even in Bucky's unconscious state he felt that same safety.

"Steve," said Nat. 

Steve put the cloth in the pan of dirty water, squeezed it out again, and dipped it in the pan of cleaner water. He didn't know what to say to her. He knew it wasn't the happy ending. It might never be the happy ending, but with Bucky here with him, under his care, even if it was just a little while --

"I don't much believe in happy endings," he said finally. "You read my file. My dad, he got home safe to my mother, maybe, died less than two years later from mustard gas and shell shock. I saved Bucky, lost him, saved the world, lost everything I knew."

There was no sound in the room except the sound of Neighbor Cat's nearly inaudible purring as he relaxed and curled up against Bucky's legs. Nat watched him like she could read straight into the bottom of his soul if she tried. Steve looked down at Bucky's face, with its faint lines of stress and suffering even in his sleep, and smoothed his hand over Bucky's damp hair. "Even if this isn't a happy ending," he said. "I'll have this this much. That's enough for now, I think." 

"Steve," sighed Nat. She looked very old suddenly, sorrowful for him. 

"Anyway," he added, looking up with the ghost of a smile on his face. "We promised til the end."

"Well," said Nat, shifting away uncomfortably. "I'll leave you to your destiny then. Promise you'll call, even if you don't think you need me."

"Sure, Nat," said Steve, already not paying her much attention. Did he dare try to clean the nails of Bucky's right hand? They were jagged and sharp and black with dirt. Bucky hated having dirty nails. Sometimes he would even sit Steve down and clean his nails for him, muttering under his breath about paint and ink. Bucky hadn't woken even when Steve wiped the worst of the dirt and grease from his hair, so maybe he could risk it.

"Hopeless," he thought he heard Nat mutter, but when he looked up from Bucky to find a nail clipper and file, she had already gone. In her place was Sam, leaning against the door frame with a strange, tender expression on his face. 

"Stark's bringing Banner first thing tomorrow," said Sam. "He says Banner is pretty hopeful, actually. He said it sounds like Bucky's body is trying to heal itself, what with the fever and all."

Steve nodded. 

"You okay?" said Sam gently.

Steve took a deep breath and let it out again. He looked down at Bucky, who stirred, opened his eyes again, and gazed at him for a few seconds before his mouth twisted up into something like a smile and he closed his eyes again. "You know what?" he said, reaching out to stroke the long line of Neighbor Cat stretched out against Bucky. Neighbor Cat's purr deepened, vibrating against Steve's hand. "I think I'm gonna be."

"That's good," said Sam.

**Author's Note:**

> I once wrote my mother a poem on the occasion of a cat -- not Rascal -- who left a shrew in her bed:
> 
> Roses are red  
> Violets are blue  
> I don't like shrews  
> I saved it for you
> 
> Rascal, among his other virtues, actually did teach every other cat we got during his lifetime how to hunt. 
> 
> also I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY REGONYM NEVER IN MY LIFE HAVE I WRITTEN FOUR THOUSAND WORDS IN A SINGLE DAY AND YOU TOTALLY OWE ME DINNER NOW. seriously I started this around nine am, went to get coffee with my twin, _took two naps_ and still had four thousand words by midnight.


End file.
